


Colors of Blue

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternative Vessels, Canon Compliant, M/M, Memory Alteration, Post Swan Song, Pre Exile on Main Street
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-01
Updated: 2013-11-05
Packaged: 2017-12-28 03:45:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/987274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Summary:</b> Castiel plays an intrinsic part of Dean's early life but those memories are stolen. When they are returned, both must struggle to reaffirm what they are to one another while dealing with Raphael’s impending angel war. Sam's dying wish was for Dean to live a good life in Cicero, but Dean can't bring himself to believe in white picket fences. Life goes on, but memory… It changes. [Sam is still present in this story. Canon Compliant. Set post Swan-Song, pre Exile on Main Street. COMPLETE. Posted Tuesdays and Fridays. Sex in later chapters.]<br/><b>Quote:</b> “You don’t love something ‘cause it’s easy,” Dean avoided Castiel’s invasive stare, “It’ll never be easy, but that’s ‘cause it’s not supposed to be. It’s supposed to be hard and it’s supposed break you down, but you don’t stop because you can’t. Nothing worth anything is cheap, so you pay your due and you take what you can because maybe... Maybe that’s all you need.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Well, it's finally here. The overhaul really took forever and a day. This story is a re-write of "Blue" (for those of you that remember that story) It was my first SPN story and while being very large, had some mechanical issues which were due in part to the fact that at that point, I had all but stopped writing. Blue was what put me back in the game and lead me on to other great projects like The Painted Horse and soon to be released, (and tentatively titled) The Lettermen's Code. Keep in mind that this story is complete, and I will be posting Tuesdays and Fridays for the month of October. Begging will get you early chapters, because, well, I'm an admitted comment whore. Please also join me on [Tumblr](http://buttsexandwaffles.tumblr.com) for shorter prompts, artwork and more!
> 
> **Also, a huge thank-you to Lydia for not only sticking with me as a Beta for the first release, but the second!**

* * *

     Memory is a mutable thing. It can be altered, changed, remodeled. What a person remembers can be rewritten to suit all situations, to adapt. Looking down from the heavens, humans seem to be such tiny, petty things. Mankind, the great mistake. But then, it’s easier to model memory after what’s acceptable as opposed to what’s true. In this sense, God’s angels are not so dissimilar. Faith is just a convenient word to describe the ripple effects of some small but original lie and belief, well, that’s just the memory of some long-lost time when that lie was true.  


+++  
[En-Route, Cicero Indiana]

  
     Dean was driving.  
     The night was an inky black, no poetic storm, no wind-whip playing salute to Sam. The road was clear and stretched out into forever, winding here and there as the Impala glided along. In all the times Dean had driven across the countryside, it had never felt so much a part of who and what he was as it did that night. The familiar roar of the engine and dead weight of his foot on the gas held Dean together like so many stitches while Castiel sat passenger side, quiet and waiting.  
     “What are you gonna do now?” Dean asked.  
     Castiel paused, “Return to heaven, I suppose.”  
     “Heaven?”  
     “With Michael in the cage I’m sure it’s total anarchy up there.”  
     “So, what? You’re the new sheriff in town?” Sarcasm.  
     Castiel almost laughed, but it was a tired sound. “I like that. Yeah, I suppose I am.”  
     “Wow.” Dean couldn’t even be angry, it was just habit. “So God gives you a brand new shiny set of wings and suddenly you’re his bitch again.”  
     “I don’t know what God wants.” Castiel tilted his head, “I don’t even know if he’ll return. It just-“ He paused again. “Seems like the right thing to do.”  
     “Well if you do see him, you tell him I’m coming for him next.”  
     “You’re angry.”  
     “That’s an understatement.”  
     “He helped.” Castiel turned to Dean, “Maybe even more than we realize.”  
     “Well, that’s easy for you to say, he brought you back. But what about Sam? What about me, huh? What’s my grand prize? All I got was my brother in a hole!”  
     “You got what you asked for, Dean. No paradise. No hell. Just more of the same. I mean it, Dean- what would you rather have, peace or freedom?”  
     What you he rather have? Dean wanted to scream, yell, maybe tell Castiel exactly what he would’ve rather had: himself, six feet under. Do-gooding had never got Dean anything but heartbreak and pain, but there was a morality burned into him so deep he could never scratch it out. Sam was dead because they could never shake the hero complex and that was just the crux, wasn’t it? Money where your mouth is, the Winchester boys pay up again.  
     Shifting his eyes from the road, Dean realized he was suddenly alone.  
     “Well, you really suck at goodbyes, you know that?” Not that it even mattered anymore.  


+++

  
     Dean drove all night and most of the morning, he didn’t stop and he didn’t sleep or eat. He drove until he reached Bobby’s, said his bit, played the good son and didn’t just disappear. It was meticulous, tying up all the loose ends to cut bake and walk away and all so that he would never get dragged back in. Then, back to the highway and by nightfall he'd reached Lisa’s front door. He knocked first, then waited.  
     Finally, “Hey, Lisa.”  
     “Thank God, are you alright?”  
      _No._  
     “Yeah- uh. If it’s not too late, I’d like to take you up on that beer.”  
     “It’s never too late.”  
     Lisa wrapped her thin arms around him, pulled him into a warm and welcome hug. There was a welling lump in his throat and he buried his face in the honeydew and Pantene smell of her hair. She was altogether too fragile, too small to support the crushing weight of the desperation he was drowning in, but she was all he had.  
     “Shhh.” She crooned, “Shhhh.”  
     And Dean let himself cry.  
     It wasn’t sadness or anger, or even frustration, but the sheer overwhelming intensity of everything that had happened crashing down around him. The physical fallout of too many hours of adrenalin hit like a freight train and he clung to her because there was no one else to cling to. Sam was gone and somehow, Dean was standing on the white-picket threshold of the rest of his miserable life.  
     After a few minutes, they went inside and when he didn’t volunteer Lisa asked, “Where’s Sam?”  
     “He’s dead.”  
     “Oh, God, I’m so sorry!”  
     Dean held up his hand, “Please, just don’t.”  
     “I didn’t mean to…”  
     “It’s fine. I just don’t want to talk about it, not tonight. I don’t have anything left- not for tonight, not for a while. If it’s okay, I’d like to stay for a bit. You know, with you and Ben.”  
     “Yeah, of course anything you need.”  
     “I’m in pretty rough shape, Lisa. It’ll, I-”  
     “I promise not to expect anything.”  
     “Thanks.”  
     They were quiet for a few minutes. Dean sipped his beer slowly because if he didn’t, he might throw up. He hadn’t eaten in two days and the alcohol hit his system instantaneously. After his third or fourth sip, Lisa started chittering nervously. She told him about Ben’s new school and how the move had gone. It wasn’t to catch Dean up so much as to break the silence because it made her uncomfortable. When the clock crept closer to midnight, she rummaged around for a spare pillow and another blanket.  
     “You can come upstairs, if you want. If not the couch is pretty comfy, it’s new. I don’t have to leave you, though. If you need me to, I can take the day off tomorrow.”  
     “No, it’s okay. You go to sleep. Trust me I’ve slept worst places. I’m a man who knows the street value of a good sofa.” Dean tried, but nothing was really funny anymore.  
     “Alright, if you’re sure.” Lisa didn’t smile.  
     “Yeah, yeah. It’s okay.” He lied, mostly because it was what he was best at. “Maybe stick a note somewhere for Ben, I don’t want to freak him out in the morning.”  
     “I’ll be up before he is. I’ll let him know you’re staying. If you’re hungry, help yourself to anything. And Dean…” Lisa placed her hand on Dean’s shoulder, “If you need to talk, about anything… just wake me up, okay?”  
     “I’m good, but thanks.”  
     “Alright, goodnight then.”  
     She looked a little hurt but Dean ignored it. Of course she wanted to help, to make it better. Women were soft like that; they wanted to nurse and to comfort, to mend. It was a compulsion not unlike Dean’s constant need to play the willingly unwilling anti-hero but he didn’t have the patience to go through the motions. When he finished his first beer, he started on another. The more he had, the easier they went down and when everything was finally and blissfully numb, he fell asleep.  


+++  
[Heaven]

  
      _Welcome home, brother._  
     A chorus of angel’s in heaven is a magnificent sound. It’s louder than all of the prayers and testaments humming from the face of earth since the dawn of time. Like an all-encompassing wall of noise that wraps around and cradles, vibrating in orgasmic wavelengths so powerful that they would rip a human soul into a thousand ruined pieces. As he passed, Castiel could feel the aches and pains he associated with his human vessel dissolve as he stretched into the size and strength of his true form. After a moment of pained indecision he rearranged the ethereal molecules of his being into the more familiar shape he wore on earth. It was silly and sentimental to be attached to a gelatinous group of cells made man-shape, but perhaps if there was one thing angels were due to learn, it was silly sentimentality.  
     Not for the first time an uncharacteristic aversion seeded in his core made his ascension difficult, if not unpleasant. Leaving to return was not something taken lightly, he felt torn between the world to which he belonged to and the one to which he had acclimated. If he had the choice, he would have stayed on Earth because there was something about it that had gotten under his skin. In so many words, being on earth felt like being home.  
     “I’m looking for Joshua.” He said.  
     A thrum of whispered echoes flurried around him. In what to a human being would be less than one thousandth of a blink of an eye, Castiel knew Joshua was in the garden. He closed his eyes, thought about the tree of knowledge, the smell of roses, wet rain. Letting his body go limp, Castiel was dragged through the many planes of heaven. It was an outdated mode of transport, classical in a sense, but it did the job.  
     Opening his eyes, Castiel found that Joshua had also deigned the image of his vessel. Perhaps to put him at ease, or perhaps he also found the shape a comfortable one. Regardless, a body made a being feel individualized, contrary to the hivemind, free. It was one of the reasons taking a vessel was situational and also, why Castiel felt suddenly like he had a quiet ally.  
     “Hello, Castiel.”  
     “Yes, hello. Do you know-”  
     “I’ve already told you that I don’t know where our father is, only that he is where he is, and that when he speaks it’s briefly.” Joshua glanced up, no one really believed in God anymore. He did, but only because when god spoke he knew how to listen. It was tiny things and mysterious ways, but that wasn’t what Castiel had come back to find out. “That isn’t really what you want to know, though.”  
     “I want to know-”  
     “You want to know what now, what do I do, where do I go?” Castiel didn’t say anything but pursed his lips and Joshua sighed. “Things are tense here. I’m sure you felt it when you ascended.”  
     Yes, he had.  
     “Quite a few of the garrisons are rallying around Raphael. They’re lost and he’s riding the wave of faith. He wants to destroy everything you’ve fought so hard to protect. He doesn’t care anymore.”  
     Who could-? Castiel paused. “The Winchesters?”  
     A sad sort but knowing smile met his, “Humanity.”  
     “But how do we-”  
     “Your burden, not mine.” Joshua shrugged, “I’m old, Castiel. Older than you, older than Raphael, and I don’t want a part in this war.”  
     “Is that what it is, a war?”  
     “That’s for you to decide.” Joshua shrugged, “But, I have something to give you.”  
     “What?”  
     “Something that I’ve taken often enough.”  
     “I don’t understand.”  
     Joshua sighed. “You’ve fallen in your own way, Castiel. Seven times, to be precise. Each time I took away the burden of your disgrace because when all others prayed for our father, he came time and again for you. But, there are rules and there’s hierarchy, bureaucracy. God doesn’t run heaven anymore, angels do. They want to know why you, why always you, and that’s not the kind of vested interest you want.”  
     Slowly Joshua touched his fingers to Castiel’s temple but immediately the sensation burned through him like hellfire. It was a pure and unfiltered agony, memories he had no recollection of pouring into his head, overflowing, drowning him in longing and sorrow and regret. What had he done- why? Castiel felt to his knees. It was too much, too loud!  
     “I’m sorry,” Joshua said. “This time, you’re supposed to remember.”  
     Spinning. Spasming. White and blue and the cloudless expanse of everywhere and everything crashing into existence at speed. All of the sudden the weightlessness of heaven had become unbearable and Castiel found himself on earth, frozen under a streetlight in a city he didn’t recognize. Leaning against the cool metal for support, he couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t’- hadn’t- no! Not Dean, no, not like that…  


* * *


	2. Chapter Two

* * *

[Lawrence Kanas, 1979] 

  
     Castiel loved humanity as he had been instructed to love it.  
     Mankind had been given gifts by his father that he would never know of; free will, choice, but this never bothered him from his vantage point in heaven. In fact, Castiel had spent the entirety of his existence watching the comings and goings on earth, had watched men and woman war and murder, struggle. He held them no ill-will despite this, partially because he had no real frame of reference. Despite God’s absence, there was no war in heaven then. Things were peaceful.  
     The night Dean Winchester was born, Castiel was dispatched to oversee and protect him. Dean had a purpose, and that purpose was Paradise. It sounded lovely when it was explained, no pain or struggle, no doubt in God or heaven. So and because he had been charged with the task, Castiel hovered in a hospital in Lawrence, invisible to the doctors and nurses and of course, to John and Mary Winchester. He watched the birthing process as he had watched thousands of others before it and when Dean slipped into the world covered in blood and birth fluid, Castiel knew he was born for a bigger plan. Two days later and released from hospital, he followed the young family home.  
     At first, Castiel watched with a childlike fascination as Mary changed tiny infant diapers and John murmured quiet lullabies. When an angel watches earth from heaven they don’t see people, they see all people. Humans had always seemed to move as a singular mass to him, a little colony of sapient but simple ants. This made everything Castiel saw infinitely more interesting. Confusing, yes, but he found he liked the way humans had adapted to being what they were.  
     As Dean grew Castiel watched in what was a fraction of millisecond for a timeless creature, Dean was old enough to crawl, then toddle, talk. There came a sunny afternoon after that Castiel made the first of many decisions.  
     Three miles away a good man prayed for a divine sign. He had lived a good life, a righteous one. He offered himself without reservation and Castiel came unto him, took his form and returned immediately to his duty. He wasn’t any different than he had been before, taking a vessel didn’t make an angel more human, it just gave them shape. In fact, even with body Castiel could have remained invisible but instead was careful to only reveal himself only to Dean. That first day he perched awkwardly on the edge of the living room carpet, keeping a nervous distance. What surprised him most was that now as he watched his charge, his charge watched back.  
     This continued until Dean was older. Each day Castiel would watch but never spoke and never smiled. When Dean began to talk, it was interesting. First he just made awkward noises while John and Mary patiently repeated words like mummy, daddy and ball. After a few months he knew a handful of words and had started to learn more interesting things, like: I’m hungry or I’m scared. He learned the colors of the rainbow from a picture book and one afternoon, he turned and pointed a chubby finger.  
     “You, Blue.”  
     A funny, foreign feeling settled in Castiel’s belly. Blue wasn’t his name, but he’d never given Dean one. Dean named his favorite show and his favorite toy, things that he liked best. It was the first time Castiel had felt pride, and he found he liked the way it made him feel warmed and welcome in Dean’s tiny world. In hindsight it was a warning sign but as always, too little too late.

     One evening not long after, Castiel listened to John and Mary argue  
     John thought Dean was fine, Mary didn’t. Invisible friends were normal, he said, they’re just part of growing up. But, the counter-argument seemed always to be: then why isn’t Dean’s made-up friend another little boy? In the end, they agreed that they would take him to a doctor just to be sure. Castiel wasn’t happy. He’d seen many the righteous suffer the narrow scope of human medicine, witch burnings and lobotomies, electrotherapy. The problem was, children are painfully and practically honest, it doesn’t occur to them to lie. Only when the truth brings distress are they taught the difference between the truth and the acceptable truth. Dean was good and honest and when John and Mary loaded Dean into the family car, Castiel sat in the back seat with a steely expression. As they drove, Dean stretched his arm over the side of his car seat and laid an orange-juice sticky hand over his. Maybe he knew something was wrong or maybe he didn’t, but it was a sweet gesture all the same.  
     At the clinic, the appointment took less than an hour. No one but Dean could see Castiel, shaking his head to answer no, nodding for yes. The doctor asked uncomfortable questions in a simpering voice, just as concerned that Dean’s invisible friend was a man and not another child. Had they left him with anyone they shouldn’t have, a neighbour, a family friend? Maybe he needed more time to bond with his father or more experiences outside the home. But, when Castiel pressed an invisible finger to the man’s temple, he assured two worried parents with a glazed expression that it was just a passing phase, their son was fine.  
     Two weeks later, Dean turned three. His parents threw a small party, just the three of them. There were a handful of balloons in the kitchen and they all wore party hats. Dean sat in his highchair, pointing to the hat on his head and then to Castiel.  
     “Birthday hat, okay?”  
     With tepid reservation Castiel took one. There was a tiny elastic which he snapped under his chin, eyeing his reflection in Mary’s china hutch. The hat was blue and it said Birthday Boy on the side. Dean laughed and a strange heat colored the cheeks of Castiel's vessel. Embarrassment! It was warm like being wanted, but it didn’t feel as nice. After some time to reflect, he decided he wasn’t fond of the feeling. An hour later, he found himself perched on the edge of Dean’s bed.  
     He cocked a curious eyebrow as Dean held a finger to his lips to shush him, then crept downstairs. When he came back, he had a Dixie plate with a half-piece of cake covered in saran wrap. It tasted too sweet and Castiel didn’t enjoy it, but when Dean scrambled back onto his bed and sat resting his head against his shoulder, he smiled despite himself.  
     It was the first time he ever had.

+++

     The announcement from heaven came before Mary’s.  
     She was pregnant and the long wait to Paradise had begun. As he would be known, the tiny boy-king would be made for hellfire before he could speak and all was as it should be. Still, as Castiel observed Dean’s parents lovingly prepare him for the new addition, he felt something uncomfortable settle his belly. He listened as Dean jabbered endlessly about all the games he and his new brother would play and how when he was bigger, John promised that they would all go to the park. As he listened the weight of his duty became heavier, but Castiel reminded himself that he had a job to do.  
     When Sam was born, Castiel followed Dean to the neighbour’s house and sat with him as he tried to sleep in a strange bed. Rain came down in torrents and thunder clapped overhead. Dean hugged his knees and watched the sky, but he wasn’t afraid because he’d never really had a reason to be. Angels are watching, Mary had said. Castiel found it hard to admit that yes, they were, but not for good or altruistic reasons. Dean had a purpose, he was a thing. Yet, having never felt sadness or guilt, the dull clench of it was unfamiliar in his chest. He was so absorbed in the unpleasantness of the feeling that he startled when Dean crawled into his lap and rested a baby-soft cheek against his.  
     “S’okay, ‘s just a storm.” Dean comforted, and for reasons he didn’t understand, Castiel wrapped his arms around him the way he’d seen his mother do a hundred thousand times before. Gently he stroked Dean’s hair and reminded himself that it wasn’t his place to question divine plan. He was a solider, a good son, and he would do as he was told.  
     When Sam was six months old, further instructions came.  
     Dean would creep downstairs for a glass of water and when he came back, he would sneak into Sam’s room to say goodnight. When he did, Dean would watch his parents die, feel heat, see fire, catch a glint of yellow eyes. Sam would disappear that night but Dean would be rescued by his angel guard to be raised by a god-fearing family picked for the purpose. Broken to divinity by fear and regret, loss, Dean would see the devil’s hand in all the unpleasantries of his life. Then and having been both groomed separately for their destinies, Michael and Lucifer would meet again.  
     That night, Castiel watched Dean sleep for the last time.  
     His face was soft and peaceful, happy never knowing what was about to happen. For hours, Castiel didn’t move. He didn’t understand the concept of a breaking heart but he felt it in the way only an inhuman thing could, perfectly. Dean was small and fragile and so fundamentally good, it wasn’t fair! He didn’t deserve to lose everything! There had to be another way, something Castiel could do, something he could change so that Dean could just be a befreckled little boy for another day, month, year. Slowly, the realization crept up on him: the orders he had been given, he was going to fail.  
     At exactly half past, Dean woke and made for his bedroom door but was stopped. Castiel’s eyes were wide and wild, hands shaking. Angels weren’t meant to disobey! It wasn’t that they couldn’t but rather that they were so conditioned to obedience it was unlikely. A dog that lives its entire life on a heavy chain will balk when it’s removed, why? Because the weight is something familiar and freedom isn’t. Still and knowing the consequences, Castiel pressed two fingers to Dean’s temple and put him back in his bed. Five minutes, ten. Just long enough to ruin a divine plan centuries and in the making and when Dean woke the second time, it was to smoke and fire.  
     John shoved Sam into his arms, ordered him to run. Neighbours were yelling and sirens were screaming and Dean felt lonely even with John’s hand around his shoulder and Sam’s soft hair tickling his arm. Something was missing; a face, a memory, a comfortable and familiar friend because standing in the street was a blue-eyed man he no longer recognized. Castiel had already been dragged back to heaven and once he was reprogrammed, he would remember nothing but a vague sense of belonging and an affinity for the sound of blue.

+++

     Underneath the street light he’d appeared near and snapping back from the movie-reel memory in his head, Castiel fell to his knees. His stomach lurched and he spat bile onto the pavement. All the pain, all the humans and angels dead or made to suffer- he could have prevented it all! He could have killed Azazel, he could have changed the future, but he didn’t. All he did was delay the inevitable and condemn Dean a longer, harder life. Cradling his head in his hands, Castiel could hear the blood pumping in his ears and was lost. Before he had thought he was doing the right thing, fighting for a cause, being and doing with purpose and suddenly, he wasn’t. Everything that had happened was his fault, if only for letting it happen in the first place.  


* * *


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the posting delay; AO3 was down on Tuesday.

* * *

+++  
[Cicero Indiana, Present Day]

  
     Dean woke with a start, the bright midday sun beaming through the kitchen window. He’d fallen asleep at the island, buried in beer bottles that by morning had been miraculously cleared away. Quelling the knee-jerk panic that came with sudden consciousness, it took him a second to realize what had woke him up in the first place. He’d had a nightmare. In it, he’d been back in Boise of all fucking places. He had been fighting a demon off Sam in their living room, been done up good and bloody.  
     Dean rubbed his face. God, he felt like shit.  
     It all came down to subconscious. Sam was gone and he’d just drudged up the old house to deal and if an angel had saved them, it didn’t mean anything. He’d talked to Cas hours earlier, that made sense. Just thoughts and faces all stirred up in the same pot. Still, there was something that niggled at the back of his mind. Flashes of color, sounds and sights and smells. Vivid, in all the ways that dreams never are, but memories?  
     Maybe...  


+++  
[Boise Idaho, 1985.]

  
     John Winchester was on his way to becoming a hunter. The first year after Mary’s death had been the easiest. He buried his grief and anger in doing the best he could as a father, changed every diaper, heated every bottle. Of course there had been an outpouring of support from Lawrence, but he couldn’t stay. Ultimately, he didn’t settle on Boise by choice, but by coincidence. Having driven for miles, Lawrence to Salina, Colby then Brighton, John made his way past Colorado by way of Wyoming and then Utah. In Boise he ran out of gas and pulled into the nearest station to fuel up. Both boys were exhausted but because it was his job, Dean rocked Sam to sleep in the near-empty parking lot.  
     The next morning they went for breakfast.  
      “Mornin’ hun, coffee?” A heavy-set waitress waived a pot.  
      “Yes, please.”  
      “Sure thing sugar, an’ for the boys? We got apple and orange.”  
      “Apple.”  
      “Will do. How about some pancakes all around?” John nodded, “You guys must be on your way to register for school. You excited for school?” She smiled at Dean who gave her a blank-eyed stare.  
      “Uh, yeah,” John lied. “We’re having a little trouble finding the right school, though. Got a bit turned around, just moved.”  
      “Oh, well you’re not far off. You probably want Whittier if you’re from this area, last registration open house is this mornin' so you’re just in time. It’s just around the corner, up about six blocks. I’ll be back in a shake with your breakfast.”  
      “What about Sam?” Dean asked worriedly, “I can’t leave’m alone, Dad.”  
     A part of John felt guilty. He hadn’t even thought about school, settling down. He’s spent all his spare time researching, following leads, making contact with other hunters. He was an apprentice learning his craft and amidst it all he had forgotten about things like education or the future, in part because he wasn’t sure they would have one. Still, John ignored the guilt and scanned the newspaper for mysterious fires, unusual deaths and animal attacks. Breakfast was quiet, Dean fed Sam first, making sure he cut up his pancakes into tiny quarter-bite pieces and that his formula was at least luke-warm. By the time Dean started eating it was time to go, so like every other morning he could remember he ate his breakfast out of a Styrofoam container in the back of the Impala. Cold, but then again, he was used to it.  
     Peeling out of the parking lot John drove around for a while. The area wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t bad. By coincidence his eye caught on a for-rent sign not far from the diner. The house had a single tiny front-room window, grey-wash siding and an off-white door that made it look like it could be home. Parking the car, John told Dean to keep an eye on Sam. There was an old woman bent over the flower bed in front and after a brief conversation, he called the boys out of the car to take a tour. As it turned out, it was clean and well-kept. Small, but there were two bedrooms on the main, a tiny living room, kitchenette and in the basement a small office, rec room and cold storage. Fully furnished, everything dated but gently used. It would do the job, he thought.  
      “Dean, take your brother for a second.” John leaned down and deposited a fussing Sam into Dean’s practised arms, then pulled his wallet from his back pocket. “We’ll take it.”  
     Eyeing the bills suspiciously, the woman licked her finger and rubbed the surface before pocketing the lot and, perfunctories out of the way, next came school.  


+++

  
      “We really gonna live there, Dad?”  
      “Yeah Deano, for a while.” John checked his blind, signalled right and merged over, “Getting you into school.”  
      “But what about-“  
      “Sammy’ll be fine. I’ll take care of it.”  
      “What if I don’t want to go?” To school, he meant.  
      “Tough luck.”  
     After that, the short ride to the school was a quiet one. Dean’s lower lip was set as he absentmindedly played with Sam’s curling hair. Since the fire in Lawrence he hadn’t been away from Sam for more than a few minutes, just long enough to shower or use the toilet. He slept with his arm curled around Sam under itchy motel sheets or the wool blanket they used when they slept in the car. Sam was his entire world morning until night and suddenly, he was faced with the sudden and terrifying thought of being all alone.  
     Registration didn’t take long. It was amazing how receptive a faculty could be when they were fed a tragic lie. While John was busy fabricating, Dean sat stalk-still and said absolutely nothing. Whatever his father told strangers was the absolute truth and under no circumstances was he to say otherwise. If Dean didn’t lie, if he told anyone that he slept in the car or in a different motel every other day, state care workers would take Sam away.  
     It was a hard lesson, but it was the first one he’d learned. Protect our family, Dean, lie.  
     A week later, John dropped Dean off outside his first-grade classroom. Sam was sobbing and it was all Dean could do not to run after them. Lip trembling he stood outside the door, staring down the hallway when suddenly, he was calm. Warmth radiated from his chest to his toes, and while he couldn’t see or feel the invisible hand of an angel resting on his shoulder, for the first time in a long time he remembered what it felt like to feel safe.  


+++

  
     Castiel had been given a very important duty, one of utmost importance to the Lord. He had watched humanity from afar for millennia, but in preparation he had watched most recently with a guide. His brother Uriel was learned in the ways of men; they were godless imbreds, mistakes, hairless apes. Long-bred from the lines of Cain and Abel, Sam and Dean Winchester were created to cleanse the earth and it didn’t occur to Castiel to ask why. Uriel assured him that above all other angels, he was chosen, and there was no reason why his brother would lie.  
     So, Castiel followed the Impala for months and miles, watchful eyes never leaving Dean. Humans were more curious up close, different than he’d expected. Watching Dean carefully tend to Sam was gentle, love in its purist of forms. Castiel watched as he rocked him to sleep, singing softly words he was too young to understand but old enough to remember. Dean washed Sam’s face in dirty gas-station bathrooms and patiently taught him anything and everything he knew. When Sam was sad or hurt he reached for Dean, cried without him. It was for this and a hundred other reasons that Castiel found himself hovering invisibly over Dean’s shoulder in the drafty hallway of a school in Boise. Innocent, yes, but more than that, he was a lonely little boy.  


+++  
[Boise Idaho, 1985]  


     John had only meant to leave for a few hours.  
     He had unplugged everything, the oven, the coffee maker, even the microwave. He’d given Dean a cell phone, showed him how to use the speed dial and then ordered him not to open the door for anyone and to stay in his bedroom with Sam. It was an impulsive decision to leave them, almost as if something had driven him to it, but that was because something had. John still had a misplaced sense of goodness, then. Genuinely but for the worst, he thought everything would be okay in the end.  
     When he left, Dean didn’t watch him go but listened for the roar of his engine. An hour later, Castiel appeared inside the house noiselessly, invisibly, and in the body of pretty girl. If the curves and confines of her body felt strange, he tried to ignore the sense of inhabitational dissonance. It was a strong vessel but it was hard to navigate the shape. He filled the core of it, was electrics and protein bedded in the muscles and still, he found it clumsy. A vessel is merely a container, a shape, and yet in the vague in-between of recollection, he felt as if he’d held prior gender. But, that didn’t matter to the immediate.  
     Sam was crying hysterically, terrified and choking on snot. Dean was standing in the living room, tears and blood streaking down his face. His arms were spread wide, creating a living shield between a demon and his brother. Hands bloody from Dean’s nose, it was laughing. That lonely boy in Boise was a cog in a bigger wheel, and that meant he was bred to suffer. Two years prior it might have been the carrot but now and by the will of the Host, the stick. A grandiose plan to teach Dean, to permeate his conscious with a clear idea of good and evil, make him ready. Castiel was to let both boys be abducted but keep a careful watch because naturally, demons were untrustworthy. Later, John would return and in panicked fury, he would track them down. John would die that night, Castiel would take Dean and Sam would be left behind.  
     Knowing this gave Castiel a peaceful sense of purpose and quietly, he observed.  
     “Whatcha gonna do, huh?” The demon circled Dean like a predator, smiling through the postal worker he’d possessed. “Suppose’ta take you back, but see, they didn’t tell me why. Might be more fun not to, pop your skull, have at your baby brother.”  
     Castiel’s knuckles flexed but he reminded himself that Dean was not a child but a vessel, and everything that happened was meant to happen. Ultimately, fear was the best way to impress upon Dean the importance of what he would become. He was born to serve a purpose, to be and do as he was needed. As Castiel’s duty was to guard, Dean’s would be to acquiesce.  
      “D-” Dean’s voice cracked, “Don’t!”  
     The demon laughed and hit him across the mouth. Reeling, Dean was unable to regain his balance so instead he crawled across the room, threw himself over Sam and held on. If he’s okay, Dean thought, nothing else matters. Castiel heard it like a live feed, along with the forever mantra of _it’ll be okay Sammy, it’ll be okay_. Would it be okay? Strange that Dean would have that much faith in the face of adversary and for a moment, Castiel was puzzled. Haze, fuzz, the vague feeling of something or someone hovering in his peripheral and then, suddenly, Castiel realized that Dean was looking directly at him.  
      “Don’t let it- please, please save Sam…” Dean reached out, “Just Sam, just Sam...”  
     For a moment, Castiel was frozen. Dean wasn’t supposed to see him, not if he didn’t want to be seen! That kind of blind belief... It was unprecedented, special. It was something to be kept safe. All at once the sudden impacting crack of Castie’s fist surprised the demon and thrown off balance it staggered but rallied, standing back before wiping the bloodfroth from the corner of its human mouth.  
      “And what are we?” It snaked the air, “Something powerful...”  
      “Yes, I am powerful.”  
     And when Castiel laid his hand on the demon the burning-white light of heaven purged it from existence. Then, he looked to Dean and faltered. He had disobeyed heaven and he had disobeyed his father’s plan but as he stared at Dean’s battered body, he felt something he had never felt before. It was more than duty, obligation or orders, it was sympathy flowing like a river from his borrowed heart. Dean had seen him! Had prayed for him, trusted that he wasn’t alone. He shouldn’t have been able to sense an unseen angel, but somehow, it was almost if he had known.  
      _Angels are watching, baby. They’ll protect you, keep you safe. ___  
Kneeling next to Dean there was something so reminiscent about their closeness that it itched under Castiel’s metaphorical skin. Struggling to place the feeling, he touched Dean’s forehead and for a moment in time nothing mattered but a sweet and unselfish little boy. Dean wouldn’t remember, he made sure of that. It was contrary to his duty yes, but orders, hierarchy; none of it had never seemed as insubstantial as it did knowing that when Dean had prayed, he hadn’t prayed for himself. Dean was a good soul, a clean slate, and when Castiel was dragged back to heaven in disgrace... He knew.

* * *

__


	4. Chapter Four

* * *

  
[Cicero Indiana, Present Day]

     Shaking off his dream, Dean wiped the sleep-grime from the corner of his eye and cracked his neck. Pushing away from the kitchen island the first thing he noticed was the afternoon sun, the second was a note left surreptitiously under his left elbow.  
 __  
Gone to work.  
           Ben will be home at three.  
           Take out whatever you want for dinner.  
           Lisa.  


     Ignoring his headache, Dean rummaged around in the fridge, found a leftover chicken leg and gnawed on it. Next, he opened up the freezer and took out a package of steak. For a split second it felt surreal, so blatantly domestic it threw him. He shouldn’t feel normal, nothing should ever feel normal anymore. After all the things he’d seen and done, he was on the verge of an existential crisis. Was that it, the rest of his life in summation? Reeling, Dean took a grounding breath. If he started running now, he was never going to stop and he knew that. Inhale, exhale, brace for impact. He was going to be okay because it was the only goddamn thing Sam had asked for. After a minute he felt the panic subside and as he did, he found his eyes wandering to the pictures on the fridge.  
     Lisa and Ben, Ben camping with some friends, Lisa and her mother, and in a tiny magnet frame, a picture of him. He was smiling and Dean found it funny in a sad kind of way. He looked softer, less weatherworn, still gave a shit. How long since he’d seen that in the mirror? Yeah, years.  
      “And mom says I don’t have any table manners.” Ben had let himself in the side door, setting his schoolbag down on the floor.  
Realizing he still had the chicken leg dangling from his mouth, Dean shrugged, “W’s’ungry.”  
      “Yeah well, just so you know the last time we had chicken was a week and a half ago.”  
     Paling, Dean spat a mouthful of masticated chicken into his palm.  
      “Gross man.” Ben made a face but helped himself to a Coke from the cupboard under the sink, hesitated, then grabbed a second one and tossed it over. “So, you dating my mom now?”  
      “No, I’m just staying for a while.” Was it a lie? Honestly, he wasn’t sure, yet.  
      “If you do it’s’okay. I know she thinks I’ll need the whole speech but I’m cool with it so, y’know.” An awkward silence filled the room before Ben asked the inevitable. “So, you still fight monsters, right?”  
     Cringe. Breathe. Keep it together. It wasn’t his fault, he didn’t know. “No.”  
      “Why?”  
      “My brother, he-” A pained expression flickered over Dean’s face. “Yeah, know what? It’s not important. But, we don’t talk about that kinda stuff, ‘specially not in front of your mom.”  
      “Don’t talk about what in front of me, Dean?” Lisa set her keys on the island.  
     Fuck, caught.  
      “Don’t talk about what, Dean?”  
      “About chicks.” Ben said wryly.  
      “Ahh, teaching my son to tell bad cover stories and it’s only-“ Lisa checked her watch, “Three-thirty. Must be a new record or something.”  
     Dean had the decency to appear at least a little mollified.  
      “And you!” Lisa turned, “Upstairs, shower, then homework until dinner and don’t you roll your eyes, mister. So help me, I’ll chase you up those stairs.” Ben sighed and when he padded off down the hallway, Lisa turned her attention to Dean. “I tidied up after you last night. I know it was a really-” She struggled for the right thing to say. “I know things are bad right now, but if you want to drink there’s a patio couch in the garage and another fridge. I’m not judging Dean, it’s just… Look, I picked up another case, it’s in the car. I just don’t want Ben coming downstairs to see you passed out in a sea of beer bottles, okay?”  
      “I know, I would have cleaned up-”  
She held up a hand, “Really, it’s okay. I wouldn’t have expected anything from you last night. I had a feeling that was what would happen. I’m really not judging, I want to help, whatever I can do.”  
      “Yeah, yeah okay.” Figured. Already fucking things up by day one and wasn’t that just the singalong song to his whole goddamn life. Dean couldn’t even look her in the eye. “Can we start by not talking about it?”  
     Lisa pursed her lips but nodded, glancing at the steaks defrosting on the stovetop. “Guess we’re having the grill master special tonight, huh? Good thing I got propane last weekend.”  
      “You did say anything.”  
      “Next time I’ll specify.” But, she said it with a smile.  


+++

     That night, dinner was homey.  
     Ben chatted about his school day, Lisa asked mom questions about what he’d learned, how his group project was going and Dean didn’t say much. Mostly, he didn’t have much to say. Lisa had talked him into grilling, but it had felt so weekend-Dad it itched underneath his skin. How easy it was, that was what got him. It felt sticky, cloistering, like he couldn’t get out if he tried. A lifetime of hunter’s instinct was screaming: djinn, genie, too perfect to be real. Sam would have said... And all at once, there it was like a gaping wound, Sam. By the time the dinner dishes were being cleared away Dean was so desperate for a drink it burned. How the fuck was he supposed to keep going? How?  
      “I think I’m going to head out,” Lisa snapped her head up and Dean felt compelled to clarify, “To the, you know, garage, for a bit.”  
      “Can I come?” Ben asked.  
      “No.” He and Lisa said at the same time and then Dean added, “I’m just going to soak up some alone time kiddo, maybe later.”  
     Half expecting Lisa to follow him Dean was pathetically grateful that she didn’t. He left as quietly as he could out the side door because the Impala was still parked on the street. Popping the trunk he grabbed a half-bottle of stiff Jamaican whisky. Import proof, so strong that he and Sam had used it exclusively for stitching. Four or five shots was better than morphine and in the field and on the job, it was history.  
     Thinking about stitching Sam up made him think about hunting with Sam, growing up brothers and friends and the only two people who could shoulder the whole wide world. It was a montage he couldn’t get away from; hugs they’d outgrown, sparring matches, shouting matches, sharing clothes, beds, lives. It was all fucking gone.  
     When there was less than a shot left in the bottle Dean was blind-drunk and out of control. Couldn’t breathe or think or stop how bad it hurt inside. He launched the bottle at the garage door just to watch it shatter, punched two holes in the wall just to feel his knuckles split and bleed. When he finally lay down, it wasn’t because he wanted to sleep but because he didn’t want to wake up the next morning.  
     Resting her back on the door from the other side, Lisa slid down the wall and buried her face in her hands.  


+++

  
     The rest of the week was routine.  
     Dean woke up in the late afternoon, had dinner then disappeared into the garage. He would spend the first hour patching up all the damage he’d done the night before, an industrial sized bucket of Polyfil and a stack of patch-sheets at the ready. Then, he’d drink until he couldn’t remember who or where he was but never, no matter how much he drank, could he drown the darkness inside of him.  
     On the morning of the sixth day, Castiel paid him a visit.  
     Dean was passed out on the patio couch. It only had two seats, so his legs fell over the side. He was soaked in the smell of booze and sweat, unshaven, hair matted to one side. When he finally woke, Castiel’s face was inches from his own, eyes knit with concern. It was barely nine o’clock in the morning and on less than four hours of sleep and a forty, Dean was a wreck.  
      “What are you doing here? I thought you were all up in heaven playing Cowboys and Indians.”  
      “I came here to check in. I see your condition is… unpleasant.” Castiel wrinkled his nose at Dean’s vaporous breath and did his best to ignore the musty mildew smell from the rug he was standing on.  
      “What, so now we’re visiting buddies? Hah, last time your feathery ass even showed up on time I had you express shipped on the prayer train.”  
      “Not that it’s likely to dissuade you, but I’ve never known an angel with ass feathers.”  
     Dean snorted and dragged himself upright, rubbing his chin. His shirt and Levi’s were in a puddle on the floor and as he tugged them on Castiel turned his back. “Are you- have you been… well?”  
      “Well, last time I checked Sam’s still in a hole and I can’t stand to be sober for more than twelve hours. What the hell do you think?” Castiel looked at his feet, of course that was a stupid question but Dean continued. “And a whole goddamn week, Cas? Seriously? Couldn’t have said goodbye or something?”  
      “As I expected, heaven’s been corrupted. I’ve been very busy.”  
      “So today is what, your vacation day?”  
      “Yes.”  
      “Fine, whatever. So, you just checking to make sure I’m still breathing or are we planning a fun-filled day at the beach?” When Castiel looked confused, Dean gave up. “Nevermind. Listen, I have to eat something before we-” There was the sudden sensation of speed and he found himself in Lisa’s kitchen, facing Castiel and in between, two cups of coffee and a donut bag. “Damnit! A little warning, please!”  
      “My apologies.” But then, Dean knew him well enough to know he wasn’t actually sorry.  


+++

  
     Castiel was experiencing a torrent of strange, confused emotions. He remembered everything: Dean as an infant, a child, a teen, a young adult. The memories were as clear and vivid as if he’d just lived them, unworn and unaltered by time or revisitation. Moreover was the strange intimacy of it, he felt almost like he was peering unwelcome into parts of Dean’s past but, he’d been there, was an integral player, belonged.  
      “Hey, yo, spaceketeer!” Dean snapped his fingers in front of Castiel’s nose. “You didn’t answer me.”  
      “I’m sorry, what was your question?”  
      “I said, what’s going on up there?”  
     Castiel was telling the truth before he realized he shouldn’t. “Raphael is rallying the angels for an upheaval. If he succeeds, I’m certain the first thing he intends to do is finish what was started.”  
      “You don’t mean the apocalypse.”  
     Castiel looked sad and Dean exploded. Slamming his fist on the counter he pointed an accusatory figure. “So, that’s it? You’re telling me Sam took a fucking swan dive and then what, Raphael wins the election and all that counts for squat?”  
      “I didn’t say-”  
      “Yeah, you damn well did! You knew I’d ask and what was going on. And lemme guess, I’m supposed to walk back into that life, fix another mess that isn’t mine? No, fuck that and fuck you. Fix it yourself.”  
      “I didn’t come to ask anything of you, Dean.”  
      “Yeah? Why, then?”  
      “We used to spend a lot of time together. It’s familiar.”  
     Dean wasn’t sure if he was tired or just angry, but he knew he shouldn’t have started yelling. “If you ask me to do it again, Cas, I can’t. I just can’t. Whatever kept me going, man, it’s gone. I’m done, okay? I’m tapped out.”  
     There was a moment of sad understanding between them.  
     Impulsively Castiel reached across the island and laid his hand on Dean’s shoulder. Maybe he was struggling to convey all of the apologies he could never actually express but stalk-still they stared at one another, implosive tension collapsing into a self-contained vaccuum. Dean felt the sad blue of Castiel’s eyes bore through his skull and it felt… familiar. Something far away, a time, a place, a feeling. Felt the syllables on his tongue, rolled the sound around the brain: _Delaware_. A split second of indecision, a barely perceptible flicker of recognition and then without explanation or apology, Castiel was gone.  
      “Wow, keep up those awesome goodbyes! And warn me next time you’re gonna pop by for a gay angel moment, fruity little trench coat wearing dick.” But and for the first time in days, Dean ate and when he went upstairs, he took a shower.

* * *


	5. Chapter Five

* * *

+++  
[Laurel, Delaware, 1992.]

  
     After Boise, John Winchester became a man possessed.  
     When he wasn’t hunting, he was training and that meant so was Dean. By the time Dean was eight he could disarm a man three times his size and six times his weight, by the time he was thirteen, he could kill him. John didn’t tell Dean everything, but he told him enough. There were things out there that would curl his toes, and all of them without exception wanted to kill him and Sam. Dean didn’t have time to be afraid because it was his job to man the house when John went hunting. For all it was a heavy responsibility he bore the weight well, as eager to please his father as he was to do anything else.   
     Sam was nine, had grown up in the blink of an eye and was a proverbial pain in the ass. He was always asking questions and pushing boundaries and complaining about why they moved around so much. He never failed to point out how abnormal it was, living the way they did. Motels, truck-stalls, normal families live in one place at a time, for a long time, same school, friends, but they didn’t.  
     This time, they were staying in Laurel Delaware in a crappy motel called the Lakeside just off the Sussex highway. Sam and Dean had been bickering back and forth all day, Dean was tired and the air conditioning unit in their motel room hadn’t been working for the last two days. He’d gone down to guest services but it wasn’t exactly a five-star joint and the snappish woman at the desk told him to fill out a maintenance ticket. Dean didn’t bother in the end, they’d be gone before it mattered much.  
     An hour later and for the hundredth time that day Dean found himself saying, “Shut up, Sam.”  
      “But why does-”  
      “Because he goddamn well does, that’s why! I can’t take another second of your yacking, so can it or I’ll can you. We’re here because Dad’s got a job and that’s all we need to know, got it?”  
     Sometimes, Dean wondered if it had been a mistake telling Sam about Dad’s job at Christmas. When John had found out, he’d been furious. Sam was old enough Dean argued, he wanted to know, he could do his share and grudgingly, John eventually agreed.   
     Sam picked up on combat quickly enough but he was too awkward to have any finesse. Like a calf, John said, too many knees and not enough know-how. But, by mid-April Sam had his first gun: a .45 millimetre semi-automatic. Other kids had family game night, but the Winchesters? They sat together packing salt-rounds.  
      “I know that,” Sam was sprawled across the floor on his stomach, surrounded by a semi-circle tower of leather-bound books. “But why do I have to memorize all this exorcizing stuff? Is it a demon?”   
      “Naw, it’s because you’re a big doofy super geek and if you don’t have six pounds of homework a night you’ll curl up in a little ball and die.”  
      “That’s not funny, Dean.”  
      “I thought it was pretty funny.”  
      “Hmm.”  
     Sam might have lacked Dean’s refined taste in weaponry and didn’t have any impressive fighting skills to speak of, but he had an amazing aptitude for language. For his birthday, John had brought home a tome of Latin wards and unsurprisingly, Sam took to it like a duck to water. Or a giant dork to geeky crap. Dean maintained that the jury was still out on that one.  
      “C’mon, if it wasn’t summer you’d be carting around that suitcase you call a back pack.” Dean reclined on the sofa, “Gonna get back problems ‘fore you even hit puberty.”  
      “School’s important, Dean.”  
      “Not for us. I’m going to drop out soon as I’ve got the chance.”  
      “And do what, then?”  
     Dean shrugged, “Go hunting, like Dad.”  
      “Hmm.” Sam ignored him. “He bookmarked this page, or someone did. It’s something about a harvesting, or a… death, tiny death, little… Reaping, to reap…” Sam scribbled down an unfamiliar word on a pad of paper then cracked open his copy of the Oxford Latin-English dictionary.  
      “Can’t you talk in your head?”  
      “I think this is something about a human sacrifice, or something. It says, well I think it says that, wait- hang on…”  
     Dean groaned. Sam wasn’t good enough to translate directly, it was a painstaking process and he had to listen to every agonizing um-ah-wait and hold-on. Crossing his arms, he peered down at Sam. “I don’t think Dad should have let you at his books, that’s heavy stuff for a kid your age.”  
      “God, when will you get that I’m not some baby!”  
      “Sure you are.” Dean dropped to his knees and catching Sam off guard wrangled him into a headlock, “C’mon Sammy, say it! I’m a big geeky baby!”  
      “Agh, Dean! Get off!”  
      “Say it! C’mon!”  
     Sam hooked his leg underneath Dean’s and managed to flip them over, brought his arm up and around, lifted his hips and rolled them over again, this time into the TV table. Dean grabbed the back of Sam’s pants and hauled him to his knees and laughing, they both rolled over Sam’s mountain of books.  
      “Get off me you big jerk!”  
      “Neener-neener Sam’s a wiener!” Dean honked his nose.  
      “Dean I’m serious! Get off of m-“  
     The motel door banged open. It was John, a blood-soaked towel on his left arm, staggering through the door leaving a trail of mud and rainwater. Sam ran to the bathroom, grabbed the first-aid kit and a towel. Dean jumped over the sofa into the dinette. He rifled through the second drawer and grabbed John’s good knife and his half-bottle of Jack Daniels. Dean had watched him dig out buck shot before but Sam hadn’t. Sam was pale-faced and shaky because he’d never seen that much blood.  
      “I’m okay, Dean get the- okay, good. Okay. I’m going to have to take the towel away. Okay.” John was breathing hard, trying to focus as spots flashed behind his eyes. “Dean, I need you to… I need to…”   
     And then he collapsed unconscious on the floor.  
      “Call 911, hurry Dean! Where’s the phone?”  
      “We can’t, Sam! Dad said this town was low-profile that means the cops have questions and he’ll end up in jail! Think for five seconds!"  
      “We can’t leave him! Dean what do we-”  
      “CALM DOWN!” Dean barked, and Sam slammed his mouth shut. “Now, just- okay, we just need to take a look. He’s still breathing, he’s okay. Hand me the scissors.”  
     Carefully, Dean cut away what remained of the sleeve, hands shaking. Sam went to the sink three times for enough water to wash away the excess blood before Dean could even see what he was up against. Two bullet holes, one in the upper forearm that had no exit wound and another in his shoulder that did. Fine, okay. Dean could deal with that, he just needed to- he just needed to remember everything Dad’d taught him.  
      “He’s still got one in him but it’s not that bad, just a lot of blood.” Dean felt like there was a crushing weight on his chest but he tried to breathe slow. Staying calm was important. Dad always said, level head level hand. “He must have gotten stuck, couldn’t get out in time. I guess I’ll have to get it out…“  
      “You can’t!” Sam sounded absolutely horrified.  
      “I’ve seen Dad do it and-” Dean swallowed and turned. “Sam, you can’t watch this. Go into the bedroom and don’t come out until I say.”  
      “Dean, please!” Sam was panicking, “Just wait until he wakes up or… or something, just-”  
      “SAM!” He bellowed, “GO!”  
     Face bone-white Sam turned and made his way to the bedroom. He barely had the door closed before he fell to his knees and vomited on the carpet. Back in the living room, Dean carved a bullet out of his father and when he was done, he had a drink. Just for my nerves, he told himself, just like Dad.  
     A half mile away, an angel descended from heaven.  


+++

  
     When an angel is punished, they don’t call it torture but re-education.  
     Heaven treasured humanity, once. Found itself enamoured as the world bloomed from primordial muck. But eventually, it all changed. What ached was that men didn’t have to, didn’t feel the absence of God like an irremovable but ever-present splinter. So, angels made rules, and hierarchies, told one another that permitted to wallow alongside mankind for too long they might find themselves loving for the sheer pleasure of loving, not out of duty or obligation. Freedom, that was the ultimate sin.  
     As such when an angel failed his duty, he would be saved. His brothers would slowly peel away the softness in layers, shred compassion, strip away sympathy and empathy and polish what was left. In the end, it wasn’t the agonizing pain, or the desperate fear or the unbearable guilt that was most horrifying. No, it was that as they stripped bare the essence of that angel’s grace, they believed in why.  
     Castiel had been broken to his yoke but when he descended to earth he had no recollection of his disobedience or past failures. God had given him a task and his family had taken care of him, reached inside his head and reset him, sent him back and watched. Twice he’d failed, been reshaped more cruelly and yet again he was set to the same task if only because his maker found it curious. God made angels capable of emotion, of choice and rebellion, but... Never one capable of being human.  


+++

  
     Sam had fallen asleep on the couch, a clean towel clutched to his chest. Dean stayed up until the tittering chirp of morning birds heralded the sun. But, eventually and despite his best efforts, he’d fallen asleep upright, handgun resting on his lap. Hours later, John came to still on the floor. Dean had managed to gently move him away from the sopping wet, bloody carpet and had given him a pillow. His abdominal muscles screamed as he gingerly propped himself upright and he noticed that his arm had been stitched. Too tight in some places and a trickle of fresh blood seeped past them as he moved, but it was clean. His face softened as he looked at Dean; the boy’d done good.  
     John had been investigating a crime scene when the only surviving son and Sussex county sheriff had caught him rifling through the house. Less a struggle and more of an all-out attack, the enraged officer let off four shots before his gun jammed and then he’d gone at him bare-handed. John barely got the upper hand, handcuffed him to a bedpost and limped out the front door to his car.  
     But, demons were hard to recognize and when the boys woke up, John wasn’t John anymore.  


+++

  
     It was one of the worst summer storms Laurel had seen in a decade, rain cascaded down in sheets and the wind was deafening. Power at the Lakeside motel had gone off, thunder roaring overhead. Dean lit a handful of candles on the coffee table while he and Sam rode out the worst of it in nervous silence.  
     Unbeknownst to either of them the angel Castiel was in their midst, ethereal energy existing in the space between particles and without form. There was no master plan, no instructions from heaven to separate and segregate Michael’s vessel. Dean was too old to farm-rear in the name of the lord, too old to forget his family. If he’d been taken young, his mind would have been soft and perfectly malleable, but not anymore. No, if Dean were to be separated from his family now he would have nothing but resentment, the kind of desperate rage that would run hot and give him power against the persuasion of angels. For this reason Castiel’s job was simple: protect the vessel. If the body was kept whole, they would find a way. Under no circumstance, save imminence of death, was Castiel to speak with or appear to his charge. On this point, heaven had made itself transparently clear.  
Glancing at his watching, Dean realized it was crawling up to ten o’clock. John hadn’t been back in two days which worried him, but he didn’t let on. Beside him, Sam closed his eyes and let out a monstrous yawn.  
      “Sam, just go to bed.”  
      “But what about-”  
      “Dad’ll probably get home in the middle of the night, like usual. I’ll wake you if he gets back.”  
      “So what, you’re going to stay up all night?”  
      “Just go to sleep, geekface. I told you I’d wake you when he’s here.”  
      “Fine.” Sam stuck out his tongue, but made his way to bed.  
     It was about forty-five minutes before Dean heard Sam’s barely-there snoring. The candles he’d lit were dying and it didn’t look like the storm was going to let up. In for a long night, he rearranged himself more comfortably on the sofa. At half-past one or a little after, he yawned and stretched, ears perking up to a sound he knew very well; the kitten purr of a Chevy engine. Finally!  
John was soaked to the skin and dripping on the carpet when he came inside, but he didn’t bother to take off his shoes or his jacket. Castiel stood at the ready, but did nothing for the time being.  
      “Dean we have to go, now!”  
      “Is it the cops?”  
      “You listen to me, Dean. We have to go!”  
      “Okay, let me just get Sam just-”  
      “Leave him, there’s no time!”  
     Dean froze, a feeling of cold and sickened dread washing over him. Despite the slight waiver in his voice, he kept his face blank and unreadable. “Yes, sir. Just let me... Just let me get my sweater.”  
     Without breaking eye contact, Dean backed up towards the wall where he’d rested his shotgun. In a split second he had it shoulder level, aimed and ready.  
      “Put the gun down. That’s an order son.”  
      “SAM! SAM GET UP!”  
      “What are you doing, Dean?” John took a step forward, rivulets of water pooling at his feet.  
      “SAM! GET UP DAMNIT!” Dean’s trigger finger twitched.  
      “Dean, I’m very disappointed in you.”  
      “SAM!”  
     The bedroom door opened and Sam stared wide-eyed from John to Dean, to Dean’s gun and back again. “What are you doing? Dean, that’s Dad!”  
      “Sammy, get ready to run.” He hissed.  
      “I said put the gun down, son!” Dean ignored him.  
      “Sammy, on the count of three, one- two-!”  
     And Dean pulled the trigger.  


+++

     Rock salt sizzled in John’s body, the demon inside him enraged and roaring. It lunged at the boys and Dean shot again, missed, and without time to reload there was a moment of confused grappling. As John wrapped his hands around Dean’s neck, Sam smashed a glass flagon of holy water over his head.  
      “You filthy little cunt!” It turned, face blistering, “I’d snap your neck if you weren’t such a valuable little meat suit. Big plans for you, Sammy boy- but big brother here? Not so much.”  
      “S-sa-“ Dean’s eyes bulged, as he mouthed ‘Sam, go.’  
     Petrified Sam watched as Dean’s face turned from pink to red, lips darkening as his cells purpled.  
     Then, Castiel spoke.  
      RUN.   
     All the windows in the motel block exploded outward, glass showering over the rain-slicked tarmac. The electrical fixtures sent a cascade of red-gold sparks skittering across the carpet and a wave of unbearable noise crippled Sam but strangely, not Dean. Castiel's voice was soft and silken, humble and clean. There was warmth to it, the liquid honey of an angel’s grace tonging the shell of Dean's ear and soothing him, comforting him. An angel’s true voice to those who can perceive it is a sound so beautiful it breaks the heart but in a singular sweep mends it with the deft hand of divinity. Dean felt it trickle down his spine sappy-sweet and pure while the disoriented demon inside of John loosened its grip.  
     Dean slid gasping down the wall, but he didn’t run.  
      CLOSE YOUR EYES, I WILL DESTROY IT.   
      “No!”  
     Castiel paused, the itch of his expanding form hovering between sub-reality and existence. For a human being to hear the voice of an angel and find themselves lucid was unprecedented, but for an angel to hesitate at the command of a mortal was disaster. Dean coughed, craning his head around the room searching for the source of the voice.  
      “Yeah, can’t kill daddy.” The demon wheeled around, “What are you? SHOW YOURSELF!”  
      YOU WOULD COMMAND ME.   
      “Don’t kill him!”  
      I AM A SOLIDER OF HEAVEN. I AM NOT YOURS TO COMMAND.   
      “I SAID DON’T KILL HIM!”  
     Blood began to trickle from Sam’s ears as he reflexively curled himself into a tighter ball, whimpering as Dean struggled to rise. Dean's face was flushed, sweat knitting pearls on his brow but there was no hesitation, no indecision. For his family, there was nothing be wouldn’t do and no one he wouldn’t challenge. Angel, demon, monster or man- Sam needed him, Dad needed him, and time seemed to still as Castiel scratched the surface of something caged deep inside, a hazy feeling of recognition, a thread of memory forgotten during his purge. _Don’t let it- please, please save Sam… Just Sam, just Sam..._  
     There came the ear-splitting clap of immaterial thunder and in the center of the room was a white-collared reverend, red-haired, blue eyed, with shadowed wings readjusting to the human plane.  
      “An angel, huh. What are y-”  
      “Get out.”  
     A snap of the fingers and demon essence spewed screaming from John’s mouth. Then, Castiel was dragging Dean up the wall by his shirt-front, eyes bulging. He was angry, he wanted an explanation!  
      “Why do I know you?”  
     Castiel pressed his face closer to Dean’s, expression a mixture of frustrated rage and emotional self-flagellation. He’d spoken to his charge, had purged but not destroyed a lowly demon and he stood demanding answers from a boy in a body he had been commanded not to take and it felt so _familiar_.   
     It had happened before!  
      “Why do I fail for you?”  
     Silence stretched between them and then in a flurry of soundless wing beats, Castiel was gone. In his place, a greying man, dark skin bathed in the light of the coming dawn. He shook his head, sadly resolved to do again what he had done before. Wrapped in one another’s arms and unburdened by the heavy weight of memory, John Winchester’s boys would wait out the storm and be gone by morning.  
      “Out of us all Castiel...” Said the figure, “Truly you are a solider of men.”

* * *


	6. Chapter Six

* * *

+++  
[Cicero Indiana, Present Day]

      In the back corner of the Lake House Tavern in Indiana two men sat in the shadows, frosted pints between them.  
      “He won't know his nethers from nuggets by the time it’s all said and done. Natty do-gooders, both of them.”  
      “This deal is only good as long it continues to suit me, Crowley. I could have extruded his energy into particles finer than dust by now, and yours.”  
      “Oh of course, of course.” Crowley took a long draught of his beer, “I’m not stupid, despite what you fluffy cherubs so frequently assume. I know what you want Raphael. Very ambitious really, Godhood. A flair for the dramatic, I like that- really I do, but you know as well as I do the penchant those three have for bullocksing the best of plans.”  
      “You assured me that would be of no concern.”  
      “That it won’t, but these things take time. After all, our studley poster-boy Dean Winchester is as emotionally vast as your average half-brick, not to mention all those pesky daddy-issues. As much as I’d love to skip to the fireworks, you know- all sweat and remorse and Celine Dion, but one mustn’t rush perfection.”  
      Raphael frowned, but pressed on. “And his brother?”  
      “Plucked from hell ripe as a plum. I’ve got a memory made so vivid that when we ram it down Castiel’s little guilt-burdened gullet he’ll think he did it himself.” Crowley took another drink.  
      “These steps, they will-“  
      “It’s a guarantee. He’ll get everything we need and keep the Partridge family-dysfunction preoccupied. Although, you might want to look into lining up another vessel, dashing as it is.”  
      “Why?”  
      “Let’s just say the first thing I’m going to arrange is a little instance of sibling rivalry, call it an advance from my personal wallet.”  
      “And then…?”  
      “And then he’ll be trussed up like a Christmas turkey all full of arrogance and pride, practically gift-wrapped.”  
      “You are sure?”  
      “There are only a few constants on this rock: first, Craig is the only scotch worth drinking and second, self-destruction is only a romance away.”  
      There was an inverse of air like a tiny pop and then Crowley found himself sitting alone at the table, Raphael’s beer still untouched and dripping with condensation. He glanced around, shrugged and then took a long draught. “Fucking angels.”

+++

      Dean was awake in Lisa’s bed.  
      He’d been living there for two months and that night, they had had sex. It had started with a tentative kiss in the kitchen, then a needy murmur in the upstairs hallway and had ended in a tangle of sheets and limbs. Altogether it had been generic, white-bread and practically platonic but it was all part of his new identity. It wasn’t that he hadn’t enjoyed it, because he had. More to the point, there was a disconnection between his body and brain. Lisa was soft and pretty, had smooth skin and plump, pliable breasts, but she was delicate. Knowing that he was going to have to wake up beside her that morning and more than likely every morning afterwards was uncomfortable. There was no equality between them: Dean was hard-lined and hard-hearted and Lisa? Well, she was bland but sweet vanilla. Good, but not one prepared to shoulder the kind of guilty weight that crippled him daily.  
      With a new life heavy on his mind, when Dean finally drifted off he didn’t sleep well. It was the same slew of bottled regrets that haunted him nightly, times that he had failed his father, failed Sam or in the depths of hell failed his own humanity. Sometimes it was Sam’s face, doe-eyes wide-scared, screaming in the cage. Other times, a thousand bar-tongued kisses with easily forgotten women. Tonight, it was something different; a grizzled man with a toy car, a blonde girl, a redheaded man in a vicar’s collar and a handful more immemorial faces buried in the deep shadow of his self-conscious. All of them with the same probing blue eyes, all pitying him, demanding of him and knowing him completely.  
      _You don’t think you deserve to be saved._  
      Hard muscles and a sparsely-haired chest, angled hips and lean legs. Desperate and primal synergy between two bodies, two equals sliding skin-on-skin in a fever pitch. Nothing held back for the sake of it, no delicacy or mistaken sympathy. The scald of carpet-burned knees, bruises and the coppery taste of blood. Fuck me, Dean. Fuck me until it’s all you can feel; just us, this, we.  
      Jolting awake, Dean sucked in a breath.  
      For a minute he stared at the ceiling and tried to steady the thump of his heart. Light was streaming through the bedroom window he rolled over and noticed a note lying on the pillow next to him:  
  
            Didn’t want to wake you.  
            Gone to work, taking Ben to see Linda and the boys tonight.  
            Eat without us.  
            Lisa.

      Feeling transparently guilty about something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, Dean made his way downstairs and made a cup of coffee. On the table was the morning paper which Dean scanned for anything unusual. In the end, you could take the hunter off the trail but not the habit from the hunter.  
      As Dean raised the cup to his lips, Castiel appeared. “Y’know, we talked about the doo-”  
      “Dean, we need to talk.”  
      “Uh, okay? Lay it on me, what’s up?”  
      “I was in Delaware.”  
      “What?”  
      “And I was in Laurel.”  
      “That night...” He’d thought it was a dream! “The motel, you-”  
      “Yes. I was also in Lawrence and Boise and in Norman Oklahoma, Fairfax Indiana, Kansas Missouri and Danville Illinois.”  
      “What? What the hell, Cas?”  
      Castiel’s expression was dark but he’d made his decision. There was one thing he knew about Dean and that was how hard it was for him to trust. The night before he had spent the evening sitting gloomily on a park bench in Jacksonville wondering what to do. Dean might not remember, might explain the phantom sensations as déjà vu, but that didn’t change anything. To keep it from him for simplicities sake was an insult to everything they’d done together. Dean wasn’t going to like what he had to say and he wasn’t going to be happy, but Castiel owed him the truth. He didn’t want to lie, not to Dean, not to anyone.  
      Rounding the kitchen island he reached out a hand and rested it on Dean’s forehead. It was for the best, but crumpling to the floor as the indistinct memories took shape, Dean covered his ears to blot out the silent shriek of inescapable knowing. Sadly, Castiel closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Dean.”  


+++

  
      The memories came in fragments. Broken, reflective, introspective. No mortal was meant to see the way an angel does, in facets and layers and between the threads of time. It was an overwhelming mash of color but buried in the center of the storm, vignettes of each time the soldier Castiel disobeyed.  


+++  
[Norman Oklahoma, Lake Thunderbird 1994]

  
      Flashes of John’s sallow, paling skin, the blue of his lips, hot tears and cool water pattering across his cheek. Castiel was an angel which meant he could save a mortal man, but he wouldn’t. Dean had a gun cocked under his chin and he was making demands as if he had the right. “Bring him back.”  
      “I told you I don’t intend to bargain.”  
      The safety clicked.  
      “I said do it.”  
      There was a thunderclap overhead as Castiel bristled, the ethereal shadow of his wings flexing in the shadow of the sun. “You would die for the man who has put all things before you? You would defy God and heaven, you would sin, all for your unnatural belief in this ordinary man?”  
      “Yes.” It was never a question.  
      “You would condemn your soul?”  
      Dean raised his eyes to meet Castiel’s, “If that’s what’ll happen.”  
      “Where does your faith come from?” Castiel demanded. He could have crossed the space between them both and disarmed Dean in less than one tenth of a second; it wasn’t the threat that kept him at bay but his enraged curiosity. “Threats, bargains. Why do you believe in these things?”  
      And then brokenly Dean whispered: “Because that’s all I have.”  
      For a moment, Castiel froze. Suddenly Dean seemed so very small, something so desperately human it ached. For a moment he was not faithless in spite but because he had never known the peace or surety of God. His eyebrows were knit in an understanding frown; it all made a sad and sudden sense.  
      “No one taught you how to pray.”  
      Castiel moved fluidly, more a breeze than a being. He knelt beside John's broken body, hand resting on his brow and he was healed. Then, he stood and rested the same hand on Dean’s shoulder. He gave a resolved nod and knew that while Dean would not remember their meeting, there was one thing he should never forget. “You should remember how to pray, Dean. Good things do happen.”  


+++  
[Fairfax Indiana, 1998]

  
     It was the best kind of bar-fight, a real outback tussle with a cannonball of a man all size and momentum. There was blood everywhere and money was changing hands, odds in his favor and odds against. The crack of Dean’s knuckles impacting bone was sickly satisfying but the trick was to keep the show going, get out a little adrenaline and then finish it up quick and easy like he’d been taught.  
     The fight was swinging in his favor when a split-second glimpse of gunmetal grey caught his eye and then everything happened at once. Dean had been shot at before, glancing flesh wounds were drops in the vast bucket of his pain threshold, but he had never been shot through. As the bullet fragmented his kneecap shrapnel and chipped bone lodged in his muscle tissue like glass in gelatin. He crumpled, unable to support the weight of his body on his shattered knee.  
     When Dean was shot the second time, he couldn’t feel his legs.  
     Castiel arrived suddenly and in a predictable blaze of glory. His vessel was tall, Aryan blonde with steely blue eyes. The bar lights fireworked pink and gold, then stuttered out leaving only the orbital glow of the moon. The stunned gunner unloaded the rest of the clip into Castiel’s chest, horrified that whoever or whatever he was shooting at kept moving. For an angel, it was a barely-there sting and fluidly he gathered a handful of the shooter’s collar in his fist before lifting him effortlessly into the air.  
     “It’s a saying that you don’t bring a gun to fist fight.”  
      “W-wh-what are you?”  
      “You shouldn’t have done that. It is… unfortunate. I’m very sorry.”  
     “What are you t-” And Castiel snapped his neck. “All of you, go home.” He commanded and immediately, the crowd was gone.  
     “What kind of demon are you?” Dean grit his teeth, the wound in his abdomen bubbling as he spoke.  
     “You should know that I’m here to help you.”  
     “I think I’ll-” Dean groaned, “Just tough it out, but thanks. I don’t do soul deals, doesn’t matter what’s in it for me.”  
     “I’m not here to take payment, you’re under my protection.”  
     Dean spat blood on the ground, “Yeah. Great job so far.”  
     “Sarcasm,” Castiel tilted his head, “It’s your defense against pain, I understand.” He pressed his hand to Dean’s forehead, than stepped back. “I have been instructed to leave you... diminished in capacity. You are a danger to yourself and waste exorbitant amount of resources on your protection. If I leave the bullet currently pressing on your spinal column where it is, you’ll be considerably less trouble. I’ve saved your life, for most this would be considered an adequate miracle.”  
     The implication hit like a punch to the gut, but Castiel continued.  
     “But, I’ve watched you and I’m... familiar with your specific brand of melodrama.” Castiel paused, “It should never be said that I am not a merciful angel. God has a plan for us all, Dean. Remember that.”  
      And suddenly, Dean was whole again.  


+++  
[Kansas Missouri – 2001] 

  
     Dean was driving drunk.  
     He had a bottle of Jose and a clear stretch of road so he didn’t bother hiding the bottle or the dry-heaves shaking him down. A tumult of emotions he couldn’t control left him on the precipice of self-destruction because Sam had left for Stanford and Dean? He was in Missouri. It was as far away as he’d gotten, but he was still driving, putting as much distance between himself and heartbreak as he could.  
     After giving up his entire life, cutting himself short at every turn to give Sam everything a kid deserved- it meant nothing. All the love and self-sacrifice; bittersweet memories of Dean playing at being a father because Sam deserved to have one... Worthless. For the first time in Dean’s entire life he hated his brother because suddenly he realized how alone he really was.  
     The accident was horrific, but Dean woke up in the hospital never knowing the cost.  


+++  
[Danville Illinois – 2008] 

  
     Joshua rested his wrinkled hand on Castiel’s shoulder, “You rebel, you struggle but you won’t fall despite never conforming to the rules we all obey. You are carving a destiny from nothing, something new where there has been sameness for centuries. Every time you’re set on a path you pave another, come to the same fork in the same road and eventually, the same destination.”  
     Castiel lowered his gaze, ashamed.  
      “You’re going back to earth, Castiel.”  
     Noise.  
     Fire.  
     Ash.  
     When the army of heaven fought into hell it was through a secondary devil’s gate in Illinois. As hundreds of angels poured into the darkness Castiel did not lead the charge, he was the center of it. Michael commanded him to leave Dean’s soul behind; without it there would be nothing but the logical procession of power, an inevitable yes to his embodiment. It was a foolproof guarantee that heaven's plan would not be derailed by the unpredictability of human nature, but Castiel did not leave Dean’s soul. Instead, he gathered the broken pieces and made them whole.  
     Something in those lost and lonely fragments struck a resonating chord which overtook everything Castiel knew or understood. So strong was that tiny light, it wanted to exist, to live. Inside a shell of chaos and fear there was still a seed of purity, remnants of a righteous man. Past the scars and layers there was still goodness, hope. As Castiel ascended from the pits of hell choking on sulfur he cradled Dean and when he finally breeched the surface plane of earth, he wrapped Dean in his old body. Tenderly he buffed away the imperfections of his hard-lived life, he repainted every freckle and tiny mole, knew where they should be without knowing why. Dean’s skin seemed too pale so he darkened it, rouged the bow of his lower lip because it seemed like he should but still, he was imperfect.  
     A red-raised handprint, a testament of his own failure and not burnt in flesh but soul. Castiel hadn’t brought back an empty man as he had been commanded because when he touched Dean, he had loved something that was not God. As Heaven roared Castiel was ripped from his graveside vigil and dragged back to face the consequences of what he had done. When he was sent back it was to deal with the mess he’d made remembering everything but the most important detail: Dean was never meant to have a soul. Voice ripping through a tiny, wayside gas station Castiel tried to speak but Dean couldn’t understand him. Yet... Somewhere in the blue shadows of memory it seemed that he should.  
      “I have raised you from perdition, Dean Winchester.” He said, “I am the angel Castiel.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: I am moving an will not have internet access next Tuesday for posting. I will post two chapters on Friday.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the posting delay, I was waiting for my new internet!

* * *

+++  
[Cicero Indiana, Present Day]

  
      Dean picked himself off the floor, holding onto the island for support. His brain tried unsuccessfully to sync what he remembered to what he now knew; the strange dreams he’d been ignoring had been memories scratching the surface of his subconscious but worse than that, there was the realization.  
      Castiel let Mary die and John raised his sons to be soldiers. He saved Dean from a demon because he was a vessel, not because he was a scared little boy. Castiel revived John at the lake only for him to sell his soul years later, leaving Dean to drown in the unbearable guilt. He pulled a bullet from Dean’s body because if he hadn’t, Dean would have put one in his brain. Castiel dragged him from a car wreck not because he deserved to live but because he had a time to die. In every instance he had never really saved Dean, just made a long journey harder. Icily he turned to Castiel, “How many times?”  
      Castiel cocked his head, unsure of what exactly the question was.  
      “How many times did you scramble my brain, Cas?”  
      “I altered your memory five times.”  
      “What about the other two?”  
      “I-“ Castiel paused as if trying to explain himself then changed his mind. “Joshua.”  
      “Why?”  
      “Because I was given a job and when I… failed to complete it, the situation was rectified.”  
      “I trusted you.”  
      “Dean-”  
      “Get out.”  
      “I-“  
      Dean exploded. “I believed in you! I treated you like family and all this time, goddamnit- you knew!”  
      “I didn’t know.” Castiel said slowly, trying to make him understand. “I had knowledge of what was planned then, but I’m not omnipotent. If I had known recent events would… transpire as they did, I would have made every effort to prevent them. I was made to forget because I would… interrupt proceedings.”  
      “Proceedings? That’s what you call my life- Sam’s? You know, I kept thinking that you were actually getting it- that somewhere under all your god-sent angel bullshit you were better, that you weren’t like them. You screwed me over every goddamn time and then flew your ass back to earth just in time to screw me again.”  
      “I saved you.”  
      “No you didn’t, you saved a vessel.”  
      “That’s unfair, Dean.”  
      “Is it? Is it really?”  
      “You don’t understand heaven.” Castiel said, “Imagine a place where there is no regret or doubt, where every choice is black or white. The grey area you exist in is strictly human and for you I rebelled and I don’t doubt that I’d do it again. I’m not here to apologize, I just wanted you to know.”  
      “Why?”  
      “I have never intentionally lied or misrepresented my purpose. If I’d known what was meant to happen, if I could have-” He paused, “-altered the outcome for you and for Sam, I would have.”  
      “You could have ‘altered the outcome’ from the start.” Castiel lowered his eyes, but Dean continued. “Really, I don’t give a shit. Sam’s gone, everyone who got in the way of the big ol’ masterplan is dead and all I have is your word which from where I’m standing is pretty much worth jack squat.”  
      “Dean-”  
      “No.” Dean took a step towards Castiel, “You don’t get it, do you? You messed around in my head, changed things, made me different and I’m supposed to be okay with that? You confessed and what, suddenly we’re all peachy? Bestest best buds? Fuck you, Cas.”  
      “I’m your friend!”  
      “No, you were.” Dean turned away, “Now you’re just another dick angel.”  
      “After everything I have done for you-“  
      “Consider that cleaning up your mess. You were part of this from the start.” Dean turned, expression as ice cold as it was venomous. “We’re done, Cas. It’s over. Get the hell out of my house.”  
      Castiel’s hand stuttered midair. Impulsively he’d made to rest it on Dean’s shoulder, wanted to make things better, to fix what he’d broken, but he didn’t. Instead he dropped his arm limply, bowed his head and swallowed everything he didn’t know how to say. Silently and like so many times before, he disappeared.  


+++

  
      That evening Dean didn’t sleep in Lisa’s bed.  
      He spent the night in the garage with a bottle of cheap whisky, drinking to feel the burn because he needed to feel something. Lisa had thrown out the mouldering patio couch when Dean had started spending more time in the house, but the Impala was there. Peeling back part of the car-cover he sat in back seat and breathed in the familiar smell of leather and Sam’s cologne, gun grease and gasoline.  
      It was the smell of home.  
      Dean didn’t miss his old life but longed for it; being a good hunter, a good son and a good brother had given him an identity. Dean Winchester, it used to mean something. It used to mean someone who was capable and dependable: a hero.  
      He had always held onto that memory-self, recalling when he had faith in his ability to survive, faith in his father and in Sam. Discovering that Castiel had shadowed his entire life cast doubt on everything he’d believed in and made Dean a stranger in his own mind. Suddenly he became an ordinary man living an ordinary life with a woman he didn’t know how to love and a child he couldn't raise right.  
      Furious and reeling Dean bunched up his fist.  
      Before the red-hot throb of Dean’s split knuckles caught up with his brain there were seven new holes in the garage plaster, but he didn’t stop. When he couldn’t feel his right hand he switched to his left, lacerated his wrist and kept on hitting until there was nothing left. Collapsing against the cool shell of the Impala he closed his eyes, bloody handprints staining the concrete.  
      He didn’t hate Castiel as much as he hated himself, but that didn’t make it better.

+++  
[Franklin Indiana, Present Day]

  
      Crowley and Raphael were sitting in a brick-faced pub called the Willard, token pints between them. Things had become largely more complicated than expected; Raphael was furious and Crowley was suavely smoothing out the edges because he had intentions all his own. It was important that Dean and Castiel reconcile, conflict was temporary. Crowley cast his line to catch a bigger fish, a chasm so deep they would never risk honesty. It wouldn’t be because of shame or worry that they deceived one another, but because they wanted so desperately to keep one another safe. Bitterness might be an emotively-soluble binding but love? Well, that was entirely impenetrable.  
      “This state of affairs cannot continue, Crowley.”  
      Crowley took a stalling drink; Castiel had thrown a wrench into his entire plan by being so irritatingly honest. Of course, Dean would have remembered everything but in good time, he would have acclimated and warmed up to the feeling. Castiel had all the subtle graces of a Mack truck and Dean had two default emotions: fight or drink. It was an ugly head on a deep-run pore, but it was still salvageable.  
      “Crowley-“  
      “You want to be god; I want to be the devil- you win, I win.” Crowley peered over his pint, “All in the pot, give it a stir and all that delicious emotional tension that’s been brewing is going boil over. You’re under the impression that their little falling out was accidental.”  
      Raphael starred across the table.  
      “Of course you could smite him- lightening and doom, all very scary- but, he’d only end up a martyr; insufferably well-meaning until the very end. The only reason he hasn’t stirred up a revolution yet is because he doesn’t know he can. I suggest we keep it that way, yes?”  
      “He will incite rebellion regardless.”  
      “Two things,” Crowley held up his fingers, “One is the collateral and the second is the circumstance. Despite how charming and likeable I am, most of you boys are trying to kill me. I make him an offer, he takes it and tah-dah! We have ourselves a little helldirt on an otherwise pristine resume- a dashingly handsome skeleton in his closet, if I may say.”  
      “But he will still rally forces against me.”  
      “Yes, but with a much smaller fanclub. In fact, I’m entirely counting on it. As for their little lover’s spat- the devil’s in the details. I’ll handle it.”  
      Raphael’s face remained expressionless, “And Sam Winchester?”  
      “Much more fun without all that self-depreciating angst; still unbearably broad in the shoulders, lovely hair.”  
      “I expect results, Crowley.”  
      Raphael disappeared with a soft implosion and Crowley leaned back in his chair.  
      It was time he paid Dean a visit.  


+++

  
      Dean was sleeping on the couch in Lisa’s living room still wearing his shoes. For the past two weeks he’d been working with a local construction company, the first legitimately paying job of his life. The workload was no more strenuous than hunting and infinitely safer, but it was running him down.  
      At night he couldn’t sleep more than an hour or two. His subconscious had been thrown into overdrive, desperate to reorganize the events of his life. Dean had nightmares; when he tried to scream there was no sound, he couldn’t fight or run. In the heavy-dead of his own mind he was trapped, unable to fight himself and thereby fight all the things that would ever or had ever hurt him.  
      That night, Crowley arrived.  
      It was back in the thirties that a man sold his soul for a bottle of Bourbon, lived a fast hard life and left his wife and son behind. Years later that abandoned son became a man, spent his life devoted to God, to his wife and to his children. By age fifty-nine he was dying and it was on his deathbed that Joshua chose him as a vessel. When Crowley appeared in Dean’s head he was wrapped in the soul-image of an old bayou gambler preserved eternally in his sixties and identical to the son he’d left behind.  
      For the cost of a well-aged bottle seventy-seven years ago, Crowley looked like an angel.  
      “Hello, Dean.”  
      “What is it with you guys poking around in my friggin’ head?” As Dean’s nightmare melted into a more palatable void, he wheeled around, “It’s Joshua right? I remember you.”  
      Crowley nodded.  
      “Yeah well, much as I’d love to stick around and chat, how about you go to hell.”  
      “I would like it if we could talk.”  
      “If this is about something else you want from me or it’s about Cas, don’t bother. I don’t care.”  
      “I didn’t come exclusively on his behalf.”  
      “Yeah, still don’t care. I’m done getting chess-pieced around, I quit. No more world-saving, angel ass-kissing. I’m out. Feel free to ruin someone else’s life, blow up the planet- whatever gets your rocks off.”  
      Tactically speaking, subtly should always outweigh brute force. It slides under the radar and creates a more intimate disaster. Without batting an eyelash and in perfect character, Crowley pressed on.  
      “Have you ever considered, Dean, that you have no right to be angry?”  
      “What?”  
      “At Castiel.”  
      “Yeah? How about because he lied to me? Jerked me around my entire life and then nuked my brain to make it better? Got my brother thrown into Lucifer’s cage? Seems like I’ve got the green light to be pretty pissed, actually.”  
      “It was only because we lied to him, first. Premeditated honesty, is that what you expected?”  
      “I’m not interested in why, the fact is he did it. End of the story, case closed.”  
      “Yes, I suppose you’re right. He threw away millennia of carefully crafted rules and traditions, ignored orders that he was created for the express purpose of obeying, violated his nature, killed his- _our_ \- own family and then didn’t apologize to you for it. Not once, of course- but seven times. He was taken back to heaven, tortured until there was nothing left of who he was but pain and God and then, he did it all again. End of story, case closed.”  
      Dean’s eyes widened and Crowley nodded; guilt was his favorite pry-bar. Dean had an idea of what Castiel had been through and it wasn’t that he didn’t care but that he cared too much. Dean was no stranger to ignoring things that hurt because that’s how he kept living. Castiel was his friend but Dean had taken all the hurt he could handle and if he had to keep waking up out of habit, he couldn’t take anymore. Removing Castiel from his life wasn’t like pulling a splinter, painful and then gone. It was like carving out a piece of himself and feeling the ache of it every day because it would never come back.  
      “While you may assume that what he did was paltry, he did everything he knew how to do for you and when that wasn’t enough he learned to do more, ignoring every consequence.”  
      Crowley could see the cogs in Dean’s head slowly whirring, making him uncomfortable. Mix one part Catholicism, two parts heavy subject matter, sprinkle in a handful of fancy synonyms and anyone could sound like an angel. It was an uncompromising and wheedled in the back of Dean’s mind creating doubt, but then… Wasn’t that what a hell king was best at?  
      “Has it never occurred to you that no one has ever expected of an angel what you have expected of Castiel? Men have prayed to angels, been enamored by their- _our_ -” Crowley cursed inwardly, but Dean didn’t seem to notice the second slip, “-power, worshipped us for centuries. Some even fell in love and begged us to fall to earth, but not you. In all this time, all the souls that have been born or have died on this lonely planet and you were the only one that asked an angel to be an angel, but to also be a man.”  
      “Stop talking in friggin’ circles- so I told Cas to relax a little, be less of a dick. I didn’t tell him to dual boot his angel-drive. Don’t try and tell me I broke him, he made his own choices.”  
      “Angels aren’t supposed to be able to choose.”  
      “Not my problem.”  
      “It should be.” Crowley paused, he was almost there.  
      “Why should it be?” Dean spat, “Why the hell does everything have to be my problem?”  
      “Castiel never fell. Not from grace, not to earth.”  
      “Yeah, so?”  
      “Every time he fell in love with you, God made an exception.” And when the sudden shock and confusion spread across Dean’s face like a sunrise, Crowley knew his job was done.  
      _Well done Dean Winchester_ , he thought. _You really are every bit as thick as you look._

* * *


	8. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the posting delay, I was waiting for my new Internet.

* * *

+++  
[Cicero Indiana, Present Day]

  
     Dean was pacing back and forth in Lisa’s kitchen. Now and again he’d stop to run his fingers through his hair, not sure if he was lost or angry. The wall clock above the door seemed louder than he remembered and each tick was a hammer strike in time. He had been pacing since he’d woken up, had had two tasteless cups of coffee and abandoned the third. In a daze he had said goodbye to Lisa and Ben, smiling in all the right places and promising not to forget dinner. The neighbours were coming over in the evening, he had to vacuum the stairs and if he saw a white cat he should bring it into the house, there was a missing poster in the mailbox. Lisa didn’t ask him why he wasn’t at work or why he looked like he’d seen his own ghost, she just smiled and said she’d see him later, have a good day.  
     Leaning over the sink Dean splashed cool water on his face and then braced his arms on the countertop, hanging his head. When it came right down to it Dean was mouthy, he thought too little, said too much and didn’t believe in the silver lining. He drank, he swore and he liked to fight because it was easy. Dean got along with Lisa not because she understood him but because he spent an exorbitant amount of time trying to be opposite to everything he was.  
     Joshua had obviously misunderstood; Castiel might care about him the way that brothers do, or family. Dean loved Sam, loved his father and had loved his mother’s sweet memory his entire life. It was iron-hard and platonic, it made him want to protect them, bend over and break for them. If Castiel strayed from the path of heaven he had just figured out right and wrong, found his own reasons. He might not agree with what happened, but he recognized the signs. How often had he done the wrong thing for the right reasons? More than he’d like to admit. Castiel was his friend, had proven it time and time again and sure, Dean was angry, but hadn’t he lost enough people? There was no point in losing one more over things neither of them could change.  
      “Cas…”  
     Dean didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud until suddenly, he wasn’t alone.  
      “You called?”  
     Castiel was standing in the kitchen in his ridiculous coat, face a mixture of apprehension and distrust. Dean had hurt him, yelled at him, made wild accusations but when he was called, he came.  
     He would always come.  
      “I didn’t actually c-”  
      “I apologize. I’ll leave you alone.”  
      “No- just… just wait.” Castiel paused dutifully and Dean took a deep breath. The memories still stung, but he had a fresher perspective. After all, he knew a lot of about having good intentions; things always seemed so simple until suddenly they weren’t. “Listen I know that I- that you- goddamnit! Listen, it was a lot to take in. My whole life man, all at once! You can’t just… just show that to a guy and expect that- whatever. I don’t want you getting your ass handed to you upstairs ‘cause you’re all broken up about it. You might have gotten your angel juice all powered up, but you’re no Chuck Norris.”  
     Cas nodded. He was familiar with Dean’s brand of apology.  
      “So, we cool?”  
      “Our friendship is intact, if that’s what you’re asking.”  
      “Yeah, yeah. Not so good with the slang, right. You have time for a beer or something?”  
      “I have some time, I suppose.” Castiel looked pointedly at the clock.  
      “Yeah, well. I know it’s not quite noon but I got an early start to the day thanks to your friggin’ angel buddy gatecrashing my head.”  
      “You spoke with an angel last night?” Castiel frowned. He hadn’t been informed but then, it had been a long time since heaven operated as it should. “Why would another angel…?”  
 _Every time he fell in love with you, God made an exception._  
     Dean cringed. It would have been so easy to keep quiet, to ignore the whole situation like he had ignored every other one up until that point. He could barely look Castiel in the eye, the blue making him feel uncomfortable. Joshua had said Castiel was in love with him but there were no star-struck confessions forthcoming, Castiel hadn’t sashayed into the room. It felt like the same ever-uncomfortable camaraderie they had always maintained, tense but normal.  
     Dean relaxed, everything was still the same. Just as he’d suspected, Joshua had been completely wrong. Angels had a habit of being over-dramatic for the hell of it, if anything the whole situation was funny. He’d crack a joke about it, Castiel wouldn’t laugh and nothing would have changed at all. He needed that reassurance, really. Dean wanted to scrub away the creeping sensation of what-if that he’d been trying to ignore for hours. There was no what-if, because it was a mistake. As soon as the whole mess was all out in the open, the sooner he could go back to ignoring the tangled way he could never quite categorize what Castiel meant to him in his head.  
      “Your pal Joshua. Came to give me shit for yelling at you.”  
      “But how did he-”  
      “Dunno how he found out about it, but whatever.” Dean twisted the tops off two beers, handing one to Castiel and taking a swig from his own. “Guy knows how to lay it on pretty thick, though.”  
      “What did you discuss?”  
     Dean shrugged. “You, mostly.”  
     Castiel raised an eyebrow.  
      “Yeah, apparently you’ve got a big ol’ angel love-on.” Dean snorted, “So what’s the verdict Cas? You head over heels in love with me?”  
     Castiel glanced sideways; it was a conversation he didn’t want to have. He should lie- he wanted to lie just for the simplicity of it, but what came out was: “I feel very strongly towards you, Dean.”  
     Dean blinked at him. “Okay. Uh, define ‘feel strongly’.”  
      “This isn’t something we need to discuss, you are clearly uncomfortable.”  
      “What do you mean we ‘don’t need to discuss it’? The hell, dude!”  
      “I haven’t discussed it for a considerable amount of time and the universe, unsurprisingly, kept on turning. You’re contradictory; you were upset when I was dishonest, now you’re upset I haven’t lied to you. What is it that you want from me, Dean? I am very busy, too busy for your- your beer,” He held up his bottle, “And your handbook of what’s acceptable for me to do or not do in your presence.”  
      “Handbook? Are you seriously throwing that crap at me? So you’ve been creeping me this whole time and never thought I ought to get the memo? Real nice. Thanks for sharin’ and carin’ Cas, I appreciate the sentiment.”  
     Dean’s mouth was moving and sound kept coming out but he had no idea what he was actually saying, or why he was suddenly so angry. Somehow it seemed like just another slap in the face; the lies, the memories, and now this. All of the sudden his tongue was stuck on auto-pilot and Dean could see rage flicker momentary across Castiel’s face but that was okay, conflict was familiar territory.  
     Honestly, he wanted the fight.  
      “What do you want me to tell you, Dean? I’ve respected your choices, never inappropriately imposed myself on your time or your lifestyle. I’ve visited you here only as often as our friendship would dictate suitable and now-”  
      “How’d you even let me come here?”  
     Asking startled him but frankly, Dean had a narrow understanding of love as a concept. He had never felt it- thought he had, only to realize he was wrong. Familial ties he understood, family love, but he had never seen any solid example of any other kind save broken hunters avenging their personal losses. He may not have felt affection, confused sex with longing and lust with intrigue and had never known the ever-patient waiting game that was genuine devotion, but he at least understood jealousy. Ignoring his own unwritten sexual boundaries, he couldn’t wrap his mind around loving something and letting it go.  
      “This is the life you chose.” Castiel pursed his lips, “I haven’t interfered with it.”  
      “So what, it’s all my fault now?”  
      “Stop looking for a fight. I don’t have time to argue with you.”  
      “Well fucking make time!”  
     Exasperated Castiel took a deep breath, “Are you happy here?”  
      “Yes.” Dean lied.  
      “Then I’m genuinely glad. Are we finished?”  
      “Hell no we’re not finished! If you’re that stone-cold don’t throw around big words you don’t understand. I don’t want to deal with this messed-up shit, Cas. You don’t even know what you’re-”  
     The dull thud of Dean being slammed against the refrigerator echoed through the kitchen. Castiel’s face was inches from his, eyes blazing and when Castiel kissed him, Dean hit him in the face.  
     Adrenaline pumping through his veins he turned in time to see Castiel touch his finger to the corner of his mouth where a trickle of blood had run down. Then, it struck him. Dean had hit him before and it was like punching steel. Castiel had let himself be hit and more to the point, he’d let himself bleed.  
      “This is why I never told you, Dean.” Castiel let the shiny red on his finger catch the light, “Because I would never ask you to change what you are.”  
     Standing in the empty kitchen Dean touched his bottom lip. There was no residual tingling or movie-magic, but for the first time in his entire life someone had kissed him knowing exactly who he was and, like everything else in his life, somehow he’d fucked it up. How badly, well, that was a matter of time.  


+++

  
     When Castiel left Dean, he didn’t go far.  
     There was a tiny park around the block which is where he went, settling invisibly on an empty swing. When they were young, Dean had told Sam that swings were a great place to sit and think about things, a place where it was hard to be unhappy. Castiel was no happier but Dean had been right, the gentle sway was calming and lost in thought, Castiel sighed.  
      “I don’t know what I’m doing.” He looked skyward, “I don’t know what I’m meant to- what I should… Raphael is changing heaven. Others are following him and I can’t let him continue. I have to prevent what he intends to do.” After a moment’s pause he added, “I don’t know how, I… I don’t want this burden.”  
     Castiel was struggling to string together what for an angel was a foreign concept. He didn’t want to challenge Raphael; he didn’t want the threat of a second apocalypse hovering overhead. What he wanted was peace, quiet and companionship. For once in the entirety of his existence, he was lost. Before when he had lost faith in heaven he had found faith in Dean, but without either he had no stable formation, nothing to align his complicated moral compass.  
      “You made me forget and then remember, but I don’t want to remember this- I don’t want to feel… this way. This sensation of- of-“  
     Incompletion.  
     The moment he’d pressed his lips against Dean’s, something had changed. It hadn’t been a tender moment, it had been a left hook in a right jab fight, but that didn’t matter. Dean’s mouth had been sandy-soft and his lips dry, but it wasn’t the sensation that had rocked him to the core. Castiel had held Dean’s soul in his hands, had sculpted and loved it. In that single impulsive point-to-prove kiss he had felt as close to that feeling as he would ever feel again. Perfect, and for a moment in time, whole.  
     But, he’d also seen the horror on Dean’s face.  
     He hadn’t expected reciprocity, but at the same time having never tested the water, there was the ignorance of hope. Not that Dean would love him, but that quietly and for the rest of his life he could continue loving Dean.  
     Turning a stormy gaze towards heaven, Castiel slowly shut his eyes.

* * *


	9. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the severely late chapter. Again, this work of fiction is complete, but I recently started a new job which kept me away from updates. That and moved into a new apartment so, lost 1.5 weeks of internet. I will get caught up over the next few days! Please stay tuned for multiple updates, back on schedule soon!

* * *

     The house was empty and Lisa was at her cousin’s for the weekend.  
     It had been two days and Dean hadn’t stopped pacing. Now and again he’d stop at the fridge when his hand felt empty, but he couldn’t stay still. He hadn't bothered trying to sleep and drinking his feelings didn't work, so he was left with dealing and that was the last thing he wanted to do. Worse, he found himself increasingly bothered by the fact that he wasn’t as bothered as he assumed he should be. In fact, he was uncharacteristically placid. Slowly he digested the entire scenario and inevitably came to the same mental rode block, what the hell had happened, anyway?  
     He wasn’t gay.  
     It was the first thing he placed categorically in his head because it was the easiest. Hunters lived by a few simple principals; lots of danger, lots of woman and lots of liquor. At least, John had. Heterosexuality came with the job in the same way that salt did, and Dean had been steeped in the idealism his entire life. As far as Dean was concerned, he'd never had a moment of sexual insecurity, never picked out Joe Nobody in a crowd and thought hey, maybe. But more to the point, Dean had never said no to a willing woman because- well, because inadvertently, that’s what his father taught him.  
     Lonely and lost, John had buried his sorrow in sex. He slept with hundreds of women: pretty women, ugly woman, fat, skinny, black, white, rich, poor- it didn’t matter. In the morning after every single one he left and never looked back because in the dark he could play pretend but in the morning they were never Mary. Dean had picked up the habit without the cause, learned the steps without the music. That wasn’t to say he’d never tried to do it right, because he had.  
     It had been a moment of confused earnestness but he'd told a pretty girl who and what he was, learned a hard lesson fast. Cassie; young thing, toothy smile, made Dean feel like he was the king of his very own mountain, but that wasn't the point. He hadn't told her because he loved her, but because he couldn’t distinguish time from love. She'd had lasted longest and everything Dean had ever been taught led him to believe that should mean something. It was the first and only time he'd had tried to break the cycle of meaningless sex. He'd thought there was something more, and then he knew better.  
     Ultimately, Lisa might know what Dean did, but she would never know what he’d _done_ and that was where it got complicated.  
     Castiel knew everything- not just what Dean told him, but _everything_. Castiel knew that Dean and Sam had lived their lives as an interdependent unit, forever twisted up and barely functioning under the weight of their own symbioses. He knew that John gave Sam a thousand hugs and Dean less than twenty, that Dean wanted so badly for his father to be proud of him that he had sold his soul for Sam’s. Castiel knew what Dean had done in hell and that he’d liked it, that hurting was easier than being hurt.  
     Realization dawned on Dean slow and easy like the syrup-rise of the sun: he hated himself. He spent every single day trying to get away from the face in the mirror. Coming to live with Lisa was just another blip in a long line of personal readjustments designed to systematically eliminate everything he had ever been. If he could shed each layer of life-worn skin he would be pink-fresh and naked, could start again. So, what did it mean, if he wanted it- that- something? Just... Just someone who knew. Dragging his hand downs his face, Dean stared out the kitchen window.  
     “Cas… You dumb son of a bitch.”  
     The silence in the kitchen was crippling and Dean wasn’t sure what he was doing, but he was sure it was something reckless. If nothing else, Castiel was his friend- the only friend he had ever had outside of Sam, and that meant something.  
     “Hey, Cas...” He said. “Uh, dunno where you ended up but just- just come on back.” Dean craned his head around, “C’mon dude. Cas- Castiel. Oh come on, don’t pull this shit on me.”  
     From behind him, Castiel cleared his throat. “What do you want now, Dean?”  
     “Cas?”  
     Castiel said nothing but he had still come back.  
     “I just wanted to…” Honestly, Dean hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Fuck. I don’t know, okay?”  
     “Perhaps to yell at me again. You seem to enjoy that.”  
     “I didn’t m- you know what, I did. I yelled at you, probably shouldn’t have- whatever. You oughta know by now I’m a dick. Seriously? A lifetime’s worth of stalking you’d think that little factoid might have come outta the woodwork.” Dean dropped his gaze, “Sorry ‘bout your face.”  
     “It’s of no consequence.”  
     “Yeah, well.”  
     For a moment they stood quietly starring at one another. Dean found himself searching Castiel’s stony expression for some sign or signal, something that would fix everything. His eyes were tired, his mouth tight and the language of his body altogether too stiff. It seemed like he was smaller, folded in on himself to minimize space. It was a guarded reaction; he was shielding himself from hurt and by proxy, from Dean.  
     “Shit, can you not act like I'm gonna clock you?” Dean stared at the ceiling, then at his feet. “I'm trying to apologize.”  
     Castiel sighed.  
     “Dean-”  
     Turning, Castiel stepped backward and misunderstanding the twist of his body, Dean tried to stop him from leaving. As Dean grabbed him Castiel spun into his grip and they found themselves trapped in the vacuum of one another’s invaded personal space. As sudden as it was unnatural, Dean could feel the habitual rise and fall of Castiel’s chest pressed against his own and knew that he didn’t need to breathe, but that he liked the sensation. Focusing on the in and out just to focus on something, time stretched awkwardly between them and when Dean cleared his throat, Castiel didn’t move away. Instead he tilted his head sideways, judging the complicated expression tightening across Dean’s face.  
     Slowly enough for Dean to stop him, Castiel rested his lips against Dean’s. It wasn’t forced or violent, not as impulsive as the last but patient and content to be nothing other than exactly what it was. Castiel’s lips were soft and then gone, barely a flesh memory, but Dean’s fingers dug into his shoulder hard enough to bruise. There was a moment of lost indecision and then Dean did something that he didn’t do- he didn't do anything. Every time he’d ever forced himself to be everything everyone expected, it never made him happy, never made things easier, better. There was part of him screaming step back, get away, brush it off, but still, he didn't. Barely but there, there was a sense of calm comfort in knowing maybe and despite everything, he hadn't actually forgotten how to feel.

* * *


End file.
